Approaching the Approach

I think the exact right approach for the beginning came to me last night, so I'm finally moving forward on my opening again.

Although the scene is static - two people sitting and talking - it is also cinematic, and I find that I need to block it out as though it is a screenplay to really find where it is going, dramatically. Of course, when you have two people, it is often good to think in terms of drama. Not one person with an objective, but two people with conflicting objectives. (That is the essence of drama. You know, conflict.)

The really interesting thing is that I'm not sure of the voice and point of view of this scene. It could end up objective or omniscient, or in either character's ball park. And yet, by taking this approach, I get a very strong feel for the scene, which makes me confident that when I'm done blocking it out, the voice will fall in to place. Actually, I think the voice may already be there.

This whole novel presents interesting problems in point of view. There are some scenes in this that almost demand more than one point of view. And there are more solutions than just going to omniscient. I'm going to have to do a post on this soon.